Friday, December 26, 2008

The answer is, Hua Ting at Orchard Hotel makes the best yu sheng. Why? Because they put in parma ham with the cantouloupe, crispy fish skin and candied preserved papaya with smoked salmon and salmon roe. It is yu sheng worth crying for and it retails from the price of $56 onward.

That important question out of the way, there are three very key (personal) principles to remember about yu sheng. The first is, I love it very much and I have eaten a lot of s*** over the years that passed as yu sheng. No more. Proud modern Chinese should not eat greying salmon and over-oiled dry carrots any more than they do newts and monkey brains, so I am resolved to no longer bother wasting those calories.

Second, the best surity of love and heart, is to take charge of situations and put something of yourself in them and maybe even walk away with a deeper appreciation of our traditions and food. Third, with the economy the way it is, we may need all the prosperity we can save, so what better way to save your pocketbook and waistband, then by trying your hand at making this dish for your reunion dinner.

To make it less horrifying a thought, this DIY idea, I thought I would do a little research into what the experts say and to increase the value add of this post, I've even researched what you are meant to say, when you mimic the lady in the cheongsum. This will impress all your relatives and really, we should all learn these phrases so that the practice doesn't die out, like our cultural language heritage, like our good government always says.

I have a good idea- to include this as a chapter of the primary school chinese textbook or hao gong min. In our identity-starved society, we really should tailor our learning more around our nuances, pragmatism and creations, rather than forever idolising historical Chinese iconography, half of which the kids don't remember nor practice anyway.

Before I get shot off the air for being politically incorrect, let me just speed through the one minute history of this very local but seasonal dish. Four chefs in Singapore, Messrs Sin Leong, Hooi Kok Wai, Lau Yoke Pui and Than Mui Kai invented this dish using raw fish slices used in simple fish porridge and combining it with a variety of ingredients like shredded lettuce, carrots, turnips, red and yellow ginger, pickled onions, jellyfish and sun dried plums with a sweet-sour sauce.

Each food would to symbolise particular significant well wishes because each wish had a pronounciation approximating the Chinese name of the food. Fishermen from the cost of Guangzhou province in southern China celebrated the seventh day of the new year by feasting on fish, which symbolised wealth. Yu sheng is traditionally eaten on Ren-ri, which is the common birthday to all mankind.

The elaborate family-sized platter and the attendant ritual of standing around the dinner table has been re-exported back to China, where it can be found in some major cities. I've sized this to feed 20 people, which is surprise, surprise, what the size of my own reunion dinner will likely be.

1. According to tradition, the fish is laid onto the plate first. At the table, you offer New Year greetings. Say Say Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜发财 (getting rich) and Wan Shi Ru Yi (to be smooth sailing) when putting down the Yu Sheng on the table. However, according to another text I read, you don't add the fish till later and in fact that text assumes the carrot part is on the plate first. Irritatingly, there are seperate phrases for the fish, the carrot, the daikon and the green radish, which I guess means that to get the full impact of impressing your grandmother, you have to start with the lettuce first.

2. Oh well. Write to me if you have a good idea on which ingredient goes first. I shall just put that the lettuce goes first. The base of the salad is in fact 1/2 a lettuce, thinly sliced. For all the veggies, you want to use a mandolin to slice them up very finely and then keep them in ice cold water, till you are ready to toss the salad. This is important, or your veggies will dry out nastily.

3. Add 500g of sashimi grade salmon, sliced against the grain and marinated with a little sesame oil and even soy-wasabi if you feel like. You can also use trout or sea bass or if you want to be fancy, use abalone or Japanese swordfish, tuna or horse mackeral. You can buy these from the wet market and clean them yourself but I think the more sanitary way would probably be to go to a Japanese supermarket sushi counter and get blocks of sashimi. The salmon is a large 20cm by 5 cm block for about $15 . Say Nian Nian You Yu 年年有余 (to have a surplus every year) and Long Ma Jing Shen (to enjoy great health).

4. Squeeze 3 small limes. Add this, then follow with 6 segments of pomelo (you have to deskin the pomelo and flake out the 6 segments). Say Da Ji Da Li 大吉大利 (to be very auspicious) when adding limejuice/pomelo.

6. You then add oil, to circle the ingredients, increasing all profits 10,000 times and encouraging money to flow in all directions. This sounds like a good thing. What is not good, is to use nasty cooking oil, which when injested, probably makes your heart valves look like the interior of your kitchen sink pipe. What I would recommend using is grapeseed oil or walnut oil or even flaxseed oil. These are largely tasteless oils that are very light and high in omega-3, which improves mental and brain function. Walnut oil in particular, has a slightly nutty flavour, a beautiful oil to use for salads. Say You Shui Duo Duo 油水多多 (business to be flourishing) when adding oil and sauces.

7. This is the second part that confuses me, most texts say you should add oil before the carrots, radish and all the other ingredients but don't we add oil right at the very end, in Singapore? Oh well. Add 2 shredded carrots and say Hong Yun Dang Tou. Again, you want to use a mandolin to slice this up very finely yet neatly (not in shards and pieces) and then keep it cold water, till you are ready to toss the salad. Add 2 shredded green radishes, symbolising eternal youth say Qing Chun Chang Zhu. Wish especially those older aunties who give generous hong bao. Add 1.5 white daikon, shredded and say Feng sheng shui qi and bu bu gao sheng- prosperity in business and promotion at work.

8. Then add the condiments. First, 5 Tbsp sesame seeds- toast these and rattle them around the tray for 10 minutes earlier in the day so that they are roasted and crispy. Say Sheng Yi Xing Long 生意兴隆 (business to be flourishing) when sprinkling the sesame powder.

10. If you haven't added the oil, drizzle the oil at the end, with the plum sauce. I would recommend a mix of 150 ml walnut oil, 30 ml sesame oil and 150ml plum sauce. Say You Shui Duo Duo 油水多多 (business to be flourishing) when adding oil and sauces to the Yu Sheng. You can also say Rong Hua Fu Gui (May you enjoy prosperity) and Tian Tian Mi Mi 甜甜蜜蜜 (May sweetness enter your life) for the plum sauce.

11. Add the Pok Choy crispy crackers- does anyone know where to buy these? You can also make your own home-alternatives by deep frying sliced up wanton skins. Say Man Di Huang Jin 满地黄金 (Full Floor of Gold) when adding the crackers.

13. Additional ingredients to add include: a bowl of ikura, a bowl of crispy dried flat fish or crispy Japenese eel, or even jellyfish. You can also add 1/2 cup preserved melon or candied citrus strips (these are the sweet ingredients, so slice finely!), 1/2 cup preserved leek strips or sweetened ginger strips (this is the bright green stuff, which I prefer to skip). You can replace the latter items with 1/2 cup of finely shredded yam.

This has become one of my favourite recipes, inspired by a meal from long-ago at Robochon in IFC Hong Kong. They served it as a beet carpaccio.

The thing about beets, is that I find a lot of Singaporeans don't eat them. Are they really such a quintessentially Western thing? My dad just assumed beet carpaccio was beef carpaccio and was quite crestfallen when they turned up, thin, red, yet distinctly un-meat-like.

When I made this version of beet carpaccio, he rather sniffed at it as "not particularly", which equals in Dad-speak that "he won't eat it", although I sold my mother on how it was so very healthy. It is, too. Healthy, full of texture, colour and essential vitamins. It has become one of my favourite things to serve at dinner parties, or bring along to pot lucks, it's easy to prepare and stores beautifully overnight.

First you have to scrape the beets free of their skin- most beets that you buy, especially at the wet market in Singapore, tend to come caked with mud so make sure you give it a through wash and scrub. Then, you want to slice them very thin (the thinner the better) and into rounds. Hehe, the thinner the beeter.

Steam them until they are floppy and soft. This can take quite awhile, especially if your steamer is like ours, huge and inefficient. Then arrange them prettily on the plate, drizzle with truffle oil, cube some feta cheese and dot with kalamata olives.

Finely shred some basil or parsley and halve a few cherry tomatoes and sprikle with broken pistachio nuts, over the beets. The basil and cheese really help to bring out the subtle taste of the beets. Refrigerate until ready to serve. If you allow this to macerate overnight, the taste becomes more concentrated.

Mentaiko (spicy cod roe) pasta seems to be the blogger obsession. I am guilty of always being tempted to order it on the menu when I see it and the thing is, no one really does know what mentaiko pasta is supposed to taste like, do they? Thus, it's kind of a blank canvas on which you can paint your own taste.

Of course, this means that most mentaiko pasta will be out of your taste, which to me, is a dry, cheesy pasta, spicy and taut with mentaiko roe. I had yet to find one in Singapore that I was happy to eat, I vaguely remember one from Macaron which was just way too creamy. That was until I met the one at Raw Kitchen Bar.

Over the weekend, I had a second craving and decided to make my own mentaiko pasta, having searched out Chubby Hubby's version and Joone's version. In the end, I adapted it from the pasta carbonara recipe and it was yummy.

Usually I make four regular helpings so this is the approximate amounts for that size. What you need are:

1. Linguini pasta for four helpings (I usually prefer to use thinner pasta, which is less starchy)2. 3 eggs3. 1/2 Cup cream (regular whipping cream, rather than double heavy cream)4. 200g shaved parmesan5. 6 shitake mushrooms, sliced into long strips6. 2 or 3 slices of bacon, diced up into small bits7. 1 onion diced and I like to add several white stems of spring onions, chopped8. A handful of Italian parsley, chopped9. 2 or 3 sacs of mentaiko (in the jap supermarket at the sushi counters in the back, they sell 4 sacs for 12 dollars). So either I make mentaiko pasta twice, or I put all 4 in for a spicier pasta which is also nice.10. 1 Tbsp of japanese mayonnaise11. 1 Tbsp of rice vinegar12. 3 Tbsp of Kenko sesame garlic sauce (optional, I found it wasn't that necessary in the end)14. Tobiko roe and sliced crispy seawed and seasame seeds, for garnishing.

The first thing to do is slit the sac of the mentaiko and scrape all the roe out.Mix it with the mayo and vinegar. Cook the pasta, while it is boiling, fry the bacon and onions with a bit of garlic and olive oil in a deep pan. Crack and mix eggs with cheese, cream and parsley. When cooked, transfer the pasta, drained, into the onions and bacon. You want to slightly undercook the pasta, because it will continue to cook with the onions/bacon.

Turn the heat, count to 8, then empty the egg mixture and the mentaiko mixture over the pasta. The heat from the pan and pasta will cook the egg etc onto the pasta. Serve hot with shaved chese, fresh parsley or tobiko roe, sesame seeds and strips of seaweed.

Friday, December 19, 2008

I had the most delightful experience recently. You may have heard me say before that I am not a fan of Mexican food. I put this down to my dislike of bell peppers, paprika, mushy beans and paste-y textures in general. Well, I had a dinner that surprised my taste buds and made me feel that perhaps, I could be converted after all.

I've procrastinated putting up pictures and a review for a few weeks now. I had a couple of work trips to Australia (fantastic produce, not as good eating) and to go diving and I'm still watching the computer screen sway, wave-like, in front of my eyes. I've kept it too long though and so I finally got to uploading the photos.

The photos are bad, the lighting was awful. I was also suspicious for, the restaurant was in Cuppage Terrace, proclaimed "the latest lifestyle and dining enclave" but really more like, well, an enclave. It's a stone's throw from the obscenely expatish Diagon Alley hangout of Emerald Hill, except perhaps it's poorer and somewhat more Japanese cousin. The servers and greeters were in flamenco bright and tight lurex maracas sleeves and they looked just a little ridiculous. Not the best start to a meal.

I had been invited by the Sixth Sense PR group and part of the reason I accepted, was to have dinner with one of their lovely partners, who proved as warm and charming in person as she had over our email correspondance. When we arrived, she was sitting with a welcome platter of nachos and sauces. She had picked a selection of dishes for tasting, beginning with an Acapulco cocktail ($14) which was shrimp, fish, octopus and squid, in a tomato-ed mix of lemon, coriander and onion.

It tasted of fresh seafood, or tobasco and onion and it was at once soothing and sharp. It was brilliantly executed and was a more than pleasant surprise to the beginning of the meal. Funny, I thought, that was really rather good.

The next two dishes where the Chile relleno de jaiba ($16) or jalapeno chillies filled with seasoned crab meat and the Tamales larranzair ($12), corn dough steamed and filled with chicken, raisins and mole. The first I sampled delicately with the tip of my fork. They looked mildly threatening, a gourmet version of penalty foods served to unfortunate bridesgrooms. They weren't that spicy and the combination of the chilli (skins only, really) and crab, was very palattable.

The tameles were good too, if a somewhat corny version of chinese ba-zhang (steamed glutinous rice dumplings with pork). These dishes weren't blow-my-socks off good but they were tasty and quite refined in their preparation. I was finally getting why my American friends insist that Mexican food tastes like Asian cuisine.

The next dish was a Chilli poblano soup ($8), a wedding delicacy made of Chile Poblano and cream. A Chilli soup? Uh-oh. I don't even eat chilli with most of my food (I eat curry, but that's a seperate kind of heat), preferring to taste the nuances of my food rather than burn my palatte beyond recognition. I sipped at a spoonful of the pea-green soup gingerly and waited for the worst.

The soup taste more of cream than chilli, to be honest, but the chilli had imparted a kind of latent heat to the soup, while the cream picked up and created a long, smooth nuanced arc of spice from the back of my mouth to the tip of my throat. It was the most enjoyable experience and woke and tickled my senses in a way that I hadn't felt for ages. I think this was the turning point of the meal and the dish that convinced me that I needed to look at Mexican food with a more open engagement- my, my my...

The next two dishes, or traditional mains, were more comfort food, foods that I remembered from the US and probably from their inferior Tex-Mex cousins. The first was Tacos Doradosde Pollo ($18) or fried chicken Tacos, filled with the usual accompaniments of lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and cream. The tacos were still crispy, a good sign. The beans were not sweet (unlike in a certain competitor's house at Dempsey), another good sign.

The second main was a beef filet filled with Cuitlacoche ($26), which is a difficult to harvest mushroom that grows between the corn ear and husk. Although it disturbed me to think human hands had pushed these little critters right into my meat, the Brazilian rib-eye was of a really good quality, marbled to rich and tender smoothess.

Out of all the dishes, the dessert was the one that hit it truly out of the ballpark-the Pumpkin en tacha ($9) was a fresh pumpkin slice baked with piloncillo (a sweet Mexican concentrate- a bit like the Asian gula melaka palm sugar), cinnamon, cloves, pepper and guava, then soaked in a bowl of cream. It contrasted cold with hot, fibrous with smooth, savoury with sweet.

It was enormously good. Enormously. It was reminiscent of the Afghanistani Kaddo Borwani, an appetizer of pan-fried then baked baby pumpkin seasoned with sugar and served on yogurt garlic sauce, topped with ground beef sauce and traditional caramelized pumpkin pie. I could have eaten more than two servings and licked up all the pumpkin infused cream, when my host had politely looked away.

The meal reminded me of the basics- good ingredients, good food and good company. I liked that it was casual, indeed, liked it a lot better than eateries that were trying to be upscale or worse, just being upscale by being pretentious. I didn't particularly care than each piece of decor had been painstakingly sourced for and imported from Mexico but I thought it was very commendable that the Palate Vine group (an F&B group that also runs The Tent Mongolian Fresh Grill and Bar and Vintage India) had managed to source and find three Mexican chefs, headed by Chef Mario Galan, to showcase the Mexican cooking and menu.

I did return to Viva Mexico, about two weeks later. I found the menu much the same as I had the first time, comforting, tasty and unpretentious. A couple of things struck me the second time, firstly, that it was actually fairly well populated, despite the relative quiet of Cuppage Terrace. Secondly, the food is relatively affordable but the drinks prices are quite exhorbitant. A jug of sangria cost (in my rough memory) about $40+, which seemed a bit pricey and given the number of drinks that the group ordered, the alcohol bill almost approximated the food bill.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I always marvel at owner-run restaurants, I like how they are not souless like all these trendy, make-up-a-scene places. But I don't understand how the owners can deal with the daily runs of operations, staff management and set-up. Don't get me wrong. I love cooking, I love food, I love interior design. But I think running my own place would squeeze me dry of that love.

This is a charming place near my home, run by two friends, Sharon and Javier. The setting is coolly and unapolegetically homely and the menu is full of comforting, well-executed dishes. The name is rather strange, given that it invokes the Raw Food movement but there is nothing really raw about their food. Apparently, it refers to the look and image of the building and restaurant.

There is a definite flair to their cooking and presentation. I brought cousin C. here to try their specialties.

The first dish we had was the Mango Ahi Tuna Poke with Wanton Chips ($15). For the uninitiated, ahi poke is a Hawaiian dish made from raw sashimi cubes, cucumber and drizzled through with sesame, soy and wasabi. I ate this straight out of the supermarket container at M's house in Maui, it was that fresh and good and then she had to drive me back to buy another big, spicy ol' tub for the guests!

The second dish was the UFO gyoza ($10), so named because the fritter part of the dumpling had been poured over all the dumplings, creating a batter freize that crackled lightly when you snapped your dumpling way from the pile. Dumplings are always such comfort food, you can't really go wrong, these were very tasty.

On a second trip to this place, I ordered the salt and pepper squid ($8) which were addictively excellent. I would rock out on the appetizers, perhaps more than the mains, if I were to visit again.

The first of the mains was the caramelized balsamic vinegar duck ($28). I had ignored my friend's suggestions toward the lamb and she was proved correct. The duck was dry and tasted like the Chinese dressing that is usually reserved for the pork in Kung Ba pao. The meat mains like the beef tenderloin, by the way, are about $35 and above in price.

Luckily, the second main was the mentaiko pasta, which I think was the best thing there and the best mentaiko pasta I've had in Singapore. Which, considering who makes mentaiko pasta here, is a pretty big compliment. Cheesey, spicy, rich yet sharp, it was perfection in a bite and the cucumber shavings on the top were genius. This was lapped up.

We also had the prawn and chilli pizza, I thought it was a bit light on the toppings but the crust had an excellent crunch to it. My meal companions thought it was not up to scratch.

The last main we had was the crab pasta ($22), which was also very well-received. It wasn't my personal favourite but stuck top marks with the others at the table. The sauce was suitably rich but I noted a slightly sour aftertaste, which I couldn't identify but didn't like.

The desserts were a chocolate fondant cake and basil panna cotta. The chocolate cake was well executed but a little, well, predictable. The basil panna cotta tasted vaguely of cough medication but was left unfinished. They only had two desserts, so there wasn't much to speak of. I would Definitely work on the dessert menu- they could be churning out tiramisus, comforting fruit crumbles, even cupcake displays and it would all go with the comforting kitsch of the set-up.

The main draw of the restaurant seems to be their far-flung location, nestled at the edge of the Bukit Timah reserve, in the very niche Spectra building (used to be the old Bukit Timah fire station). The owners have done a charming job incorporating the natural and vintage elements of the surrouding into their restaurant space. It's in a residential hinterland, so hopefully that will work to their advantage, although the prices are a tad high for the crowd (a simple dinner came up to $50 a person without drinks)- there is a reason after all, that Marmalade Pantry does not open in Rail Mall.

I still think the decor and ideas are undeniably hip and worth a trip out but I did bring Colin and my family back for a return trip and it didn't go down so well. The mentaiko pasta was spicy and very dry, the rack of pork which my dad opted for tasted to him to be very much tenderized and the desserts were the same, a bit of a let-down which we didn't stay for in the end.

Monday, December 15, 2008

I am always asked if I attend cooking classes and the answer is, rarely but yes, from time to time, when I find a dish or item that I want to take instruction in, or perfect. The last two classes I attended were Chef Pang's Choux Pastry class in Canele and at Shermay's cooking school in Chip Bee Gardens. My most recent class there was with Joycelyn Shu, the author of the lovely food blog, Kuidaore.

If you read the blurbs, you'll know that Chef Pang Kok Keong was a student at SHATEC (the Singapore hotelling school) and worked at Miachealangelo's, the now defunct Salut, Baker's Inn and interned at the Totel Pasteleria in Spain.

He then worked for Ritz Carlton, the Hilton Hotel and became subsequently, the executive pastry chef for the Les Amis Group and the operator behind the Canele Patisserie. He has been nominated and won numerous awards for both cold and hot cooking. Shermay Lee, on the other hand, is the cousin of our current prime minister and an investment-banker-turned award winning cookbook author, having represented Singapore and won awards at a number of international competitions.

Both places run relatively small classes, although Canale's classes are smaller at 20people per class. (Joycelyn's classes at Shermay's are small but some other guest chefs run larger classes). Both are about the same price, although Shermay cooking school classes can be more expensive (or less, depending on the recipes and the teacher, while Canale's is a flat $120) they are also at least an hour longer. Generally I found the classes at Shemay's more interactive, although Chef Pang did encourage us to stand up and view the contents of the bowls.

I guess the thing about Canale's classes is that there isn't a dedicated classroom, rather it's a cordoned off area of the store with a standing island stove. Strangely though, while there is ample chandelier-try, they did not put in any mirrors either directly on top or above but behind the chef, so it makes it pretty much impossible for the seated audience to see what is going on.

The main difference is probably two-fold. The first is the audience, Shermay's has a reputation for being a tai-tai hangout, that is, supermoms who lunch and bond over beautiful cookies, or ladies who lunch and send their maids to cooking school. The reality is more that there are a lot of young women in the class, most working but perhaps many on their way to a marriage of luxury.

It's not uncommon for people to stroll in looking immaculate in ready-to-wear that have strange names like Victor and Rolf, 3.1 Phillip Lim and Alessandro Dell Acqua and carrying leather bags more gorgeous than their clothing. If people could cook in Manolos, this would be the place and the way. Nobody asks whether Grand Marnier is "orange liquor" and while not everyone pipes straight, they all know love decorated cupcakes. Nobody asks if they can make durian versions of what we are learning.

The Canale class, by contrast, was the weirdest mix of people I've come across of late. I was amazed to find that secondary school students will pay so much for cooking classes and sure, there were the requisite young women aspiring to domesticity but there were an awful lot of old aunties as well who seemed to have trouble following an English syllabus. How do you spell Gruyere? Gee- AHH rer- U- whyer- eeAHH rer.... It didn't bother me, as much I thought it was great that they were trying to upgrade their skills. But why learn recipes like this when you don't like cream and cheese and want to infuse them with durian?

In some sense, it makes a lot of sense. Canale is a patisserie, people of all walks of life get seduced by chocolate and refined pastry. Shermay's is a dedicated cooking school, on the second floor of a thin residential shophouse. To Chef Pang's credit, he kept the class flowing quickly and smoothly, incorporating both the air from the high-falutin British accents and the ackward questions about items already in the recipe.

In Chef Pang's class, we were taught cheese gruyere puffs and larger biscuit-crusted puffs, filled with grand marnier pastry cream, strawberries and chantilly cream. We also learnt chocolate eclairs and the crocombouque, which was the highlight of the class.

The second difference is thus the chefs. Chef Pang may be a brilliant chef but upon first sight, he looks a little like a Phua Chu Kang. Wait, make that a hungover Phua Chu Kang. Before the class really started to liven up, he was pretty deadly in his monotone about this much flour into this much sugar.

The excitement level was probably below what was caused by his multiple earrings and thick metal chain clipped to his belt. A class at Shermay's though, is a briskly perky affair, it starts with a Good Afternoon Everyone and is buzzing with Gryphon teawater and the sound of people buying things and watching Joycelyn ease her way around the kitchen in a slim black apron and gorgeous bright green jade stud earrings. It has less to do, I suspect, with looks as it has the level of preparation.

When I called up for the class at Canale, I was given a brief run-down of what we would be taught. When I enquired about future lessons, I was told it was Tarts in October and Christmas in November.

Yes, but what tarts, I persisted. She had to check with the chef, who apparently, wasn't sure. Nutella tart, I was told. And what else? She had to check with the chef again and came back with a couple of items which sounded rather short. They would all be on the web, she said, but the page that links to the classes was still empty.

I've seen Joycelyn before a class. She is activity, merticulousness and anxiety personified. She is one of the only bloggers I know who has as good pictures of her baking process, as her end result. In her class, you are blanketed with notations and helpful tips.

There are "extra" sections and "variation" segments and detailed page instructions on how to pipe, roll, smoothen and dot. Everything needed is placed by her, Shermay, or one of their kitchen hands on trays and each demonstration is exact and prompt.

In this class, we were learning to make meringue kisses and fruit-filled meringue cups, sticky toffee bundts and mini-cakes, gingerbread cupcakes and hot and cold chocolate pudding. The class moved seamlessly and the steps listed in the recipe packs were more than coherant, they were almost exhaustive. However, this left Joycelyn free and able to point out the finer details and tips to achieving a palatable and presentable product.

Chef Pang's process seemed equally fool-proof but it's clear that his minions are not as well-trained. The recipe reads Flour- 100g, Cream- 100g. Well, what flour, cake flour, plain flour and what cream? Joycelyn's would probably read something like President Whipping Cream (28% fat, available at Cold Storage or Phoon Huat, do not use thickened cream as it contains gelatin)- 100g and have some note on the consistency of the mixture pre and post adding the cream.

Several times, Chef Pang would look up? Then have to call into the kitchen for the chantilly cream, or, I don't have enough choux pastry here for one whole recipe. The variations are listed as seperate recipes in the instruction pack.

Not, at the end of the day, that that really matters. The funny thing is, well, Chef Pang is more funny. Usually, the guest chef's at Shermay's find it difficult to lift a laugh out of their smiling audience. But Chef Pang gets a lot of laughs out of his dull mob.

When one lady comments (frequently) that the mixture smells too milky and that it is 'gelat' (local lingo for 'too rich'), Chef Pang takes it in stride and says, but if you really did use water, it wouldn't taste as good but yes, you can use soya milk!

Strangely, Joycelyn would probably be the first to suggest soya milk in her own recipes but Chef Pang takes a more unapologetic view toward trivialities. Later, when demonstrating a crocombouche, he says slyly, too bad you can't make it of durian.... And then riffs, durian, also very gelat hor? He is off-the-cuff and unexpected, sometimes staring down questions and saying, literally, I Donch know! To which he adds, I've always done it this way, I've never tried that, maybe it will work?

Their results were both undeniable in the class. In Chef Pang's class, I was struck by the crocombouque, which is something that can be made for Christmas or a party. It is a cone of profiteroles that is stuck together with caramel and wrapped in a beautiful delicate coat of spun sugar, the only item that really showed off Chef Pang's magic fingers with sugar art.

In Joycelyn's class, I was bowled over by the mini toffee bundts and the meringue mushrooms. Who could fail to be charmed by these life-like pieces, perfect for decorating the top of a classy chocolate birthday cake?

Of course, the proof is in the making. A week later, as a result of the vague directions sheet though, of course, I could not remember the details on what Chef Pang's ingredients specifically were. I had the vague notion that the consistency of some processes were not quite right but having made them over several times, I had forgotten what they initially looked like. So-far, my two attempts at cheese gruyeres have been entirely unsuccessful. Joycelyn's sticky toffee date bundt, on the other hand, though arguably an easier recipe, worked well for me on the first try and I was confident enough to try it as a birthday cake for a friend's party.

On the other hand, having written to Chef Pang about the lovely chocolate filling in the eclairs at Dalloyau in Paris and he was gracious enough to have replied with a recipe for a thicker, richer chocolate cream, so if I ever do get my choux pastry to rise, I can make a world-class product!